Will Folding Phones Ever Go Mainstream?
Thanks to Typical Tech Lad for today’s topic!
Hi Shane, as someone who regularly reviews and spends quite a while living with different devices, foldables are one category I’m still torn on despite how far the hardware has come.
Do you think foldables have truly moved past the early adopter phase and become practical for mainstream users, or do they still feel like enthusiast devices?
And if you could fix just one major limitation with foldables today, whether that be durability, battery compromises, software optimization, crease visibility, or anything else, what do you think is the biggest obstacle stopping them from becoming the default smartphone form factor?
And if you could design the perfect foldable device with no current tech limitations, what would it look like?
Anyway, huge fan of the channel, love what you do, keep it coming :)
TTL
There are quite a few things about folding phones that have traditionally kept them squarely in the enthusiast category. Price is the most obvious barrier. These devices are so expensive that most people aren't just walking into their local AT&T store and—with no prior thought—saying, "Yeah, I'll just take the new Z Fold." That just doesn't happen. It is a massive amount of money to spend, even when it's broken up into monthly installments on your cell bill. Beyond the cost, you have the "novel factor" of a phone that unfolds. The design, the shape, the size—all of these things are a bit unusual, and that naturally excludes them into enthusiast territory.
However, if we are just talking about build quality and whether these phones are "ready" to be mainstreamed, I think the answer is yes. While I don't have hard data, my observations of the conversations happening online suggest that failure rates have gone down significantly. If you’re buying from a major player like Samsung that has been at this for years, I don’t think you have a significantly higher risk of hardware failure than you do with a normal slab phone. I’ve owned a lot of folding phones at this point—Galaxy Folds, Honor, Oppo, OnePlus—and they’re all chugging along fine. Interestingly, the only ones I've personally had hardware failures with were Pixels, which is something to keep in mind. The tech has matured; ultra-thin glass is getting thicker and more durable with every generation, and the move toward "teardrop" or "water drop" hinges means the screen isn't being creased quite so tightly anymore.
When asked what the biggest obstacle is for foldables becoming the "default" smartphone, I have to be honest: I don't think they ever will be. Most people simply don't need that big of a screen in their pocket. But there are two ways to look at how they could move closer to that goal. The obvious fix is that the price has to come down. If a Galaxy S26 Ultra is $1,300 and a Z Fold 8 is $1,900, the Fold is never going to be the default.
The "spicier" answer, though, involves a fundamental shift in form factor, something we're already seeing begin to happen. I view screen aspect ratios as a gradient. On one end, you have 9x16, which is great for scrolling through long lists of social media content. On the opposite end, you have 16x9, which is the gold standard for media and movies. Most folding phones have arrived at a square inner screen as a supposed middle ground. The problem is that while a square is equally good at both, it’s actually kind of mediocre at both. Social media apps end up way wider than they were designed to be, and media consumption is plagued by giant black bars. It makes the device feel like a compromise rather than an upgrade.
This is why I'm so excited about the rumored shift toward a wider, "Passport" style form factor. It’s all about perception. For a productivity-minded people like me, a square makes sense for split-screening a spreadsheet and a Word document. But most people just want to consume media. A form factor that is shorter and wider communicates to the user: "This is for watching movies." It also gives app developers a real reason to finally make their apps adaptable for dual-panel layouts. A wider aspect ratio makes a dual-panel app look like it belongs there, whereas on a square, it often feels cramped.
If I could design the perfect foldable, it would look a lot like that: a wider inner display, big silicon-carbon batteries, a top-tier camera system like you'd find on an Honor Magic V device, and Pixel-style software with some smart floating window multitasking. That is getting real close to the optimal device.